"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

That's Jeff Mills. He was also the first person to release a collection of locked grooves on vinyl. (AX-08, 1994).

NON's Pagan Muzak (Gray Beat, 1978) is a one-sided 7-inch with multiple locked grooves and two center holes, meaning each locked groove can be played at two different trajectories as well as any number of speeds. The original release came with instructions for the listener to drill more holes in the record as they saw appropriate.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

...I want to pick you up on one thing - in the mid-late 1920s, there was a craze in the UK recording industry for getting as much ambience on recordings as possible. "Recorded in a public hall" the labels proudly declare - which usually means there's so much echo on the recording that you can't hear many details at all. I can't find a decent example on YouTube - this is one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0jmFhVxKNY but it's not that obvious the way it's been transcribed that all the echo is on the record itself.

This one shows the amount of ambience recorded onto some 1920s records...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwfVJWTa2Q...compare with any other recording on the same Youtube channel - the room the gramophones sit in is "dry" - the echo is all on the record.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

in the mid-late 1920s, there was a craze in the UK recording industry for getting as much ambience on recordings as possible. "Recorded in a public hall" the labels proudly declare - which usually means there's so much echo on the recording that you can't hear many details at all.

David.

Do you have any more info on this - a book you could point me to or something? It's an era that interests me and I've not come across this suggestion before

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

I am inclined to believe that loops etc. have run out of fashion simply because the popular distribution formats (CD and the usual file format suspects) do not support it. I'd say that the one feature I would have asked for if I were to design The Format To Distribute Audio To Consumers, is programming instructions. (Disregarding, of course, that Microsoft anno 1999 or Adobe anno 2012 would have made it into a marvellous malware infection vector.)

I'd have wanted at least: - loops. Of course not limited to inifinite 1.8 second or 4/3 second loops offered by LPs/45s. - reuse a previous part of the signal, either as-is or with a diff.- randomize! Once every now and then, play a different solo. (This is also possible, within narrow limits, with vinyl.)- instructions for downmixing.

And, what could easily be implemented by a tag, if everyone agreed: a reference volume. This record was mixed and EQ'ed for playback at xx phon; then a DSP could implement your best shot at equal-loudness-contour based EQ.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

I am inclined to believe that loops etc. have run out of fashion simply because the popular distribution formats (CD and the usual file format suspects) do not support it.

this is getting really off-topic but i can't resist adding my 2c.

arguably, loops are more popular than ever. entire websites concentrate on selling loops (e.g., loopmasters.com, soundstosample.com, sounds.beatport.com, etc.) so i don't think that loops haven run out of fashion. it's quite to the contrary.

also, it's gotten much easier to create loops yourself. only absolute purists (basically, vinyl guys that don't use other digital equipment) need locked grooves. even if you're a vinyl DJ, you can create your own loops by using a digital mixer or dj effects processor (a la korg kaoss pad) with looping capabilities. or if you play out on CDJs (that is, pioneer's popular line of DJ CD players), you have frame-accurate or better looping tools at your disposal anyway. lastly, virtually any pertinent software for producers and/or DJs (e.g., DAWs, sequencers, digital DJ software) allows you to loop.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

I am inclined to believe that loops etc. have run out of fashion simply because the popular distribution formats (CD and the usual file format suspects) do not support it.

this is getting really off-topic but i can't resist adding my 2c.

arguably, loops are more popular than ever. entire websites concentrate on selling loops (e.g., loopmasters.com, soundstosample.com, sounds.beatport.com, etc.) so i don't think that loops haven run out of fashion. it's quite to the contrary.

Thanks for the link. Quite interesting. I'd always assumed that they used a "Public Hall" (the Wigmore Hall in the case of Columbia) for convenience. Most of those bands were based in central London and were doing 2 shows a day so it was much easier to pop round the corner to record than have to go all the way to the studio in Hayes

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

Not necessarily. All you can really say is that CD has the potential to reproduce music more accurately and more repeatably than vinyl, but there is also the potential to screw up the mastering on the CD version.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

...are they feeding a digital recording into a machine that's carving out records on vinyl?

I believe 99.9% of the time, yes. ...but that should not be an issue to any (sane) buyer of modern LPs. IMO to not use digital studio equipment today is counterproductive at the least. I own two metal records (that came out a year ago or less) that were said to have been recorded on analogue equipment. (Prong's Carved Into Stone and Krisiun's The Great Execution.) They don't "sound good" because they were put on analogue tape, but rather because of the extra care that somebody who would undertake such an endeavor put into the mastering process. (Both albums are too loud on CD.)

IOW: Many modern records have "pre-clipped" masters put on them. I think that's the real draw for some.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

...are they feeding a digital recording into a machine that's carving out records on vinyl?

I believe 99.9% of the time, yes. ...but that should not be an issue to any (sane) buyer of modern LPs. IMO to not use digital studio equipment today is counterproductive at the least. I own two metal records (that came out a year ago or less) that were said to have been recorded on analogue equipment. (Prong's Carved Into Stone and Krisiun's The Great Execution.) They don't "sound good" because they were put on analogue tape, but rather because of the extra care that somebody who would undertake such an endeavor put into the mastering process. (Both albums are too loud on CD.)

IOW: Many modern records have "pre-clipped" masters put on them. I think that's the real draw for some.

Thanks.

I always found it amusing that people could claim a recording transferred from an electronic file or tape to vinyl could sound better.

"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl"

I always found it amusing that people could claim a recording transferred from an electronic file or tape to vinyl could sound better.

Well if by "better" you mean "more accurate" it can't. But most people don't use the word "better" that way, they use it in a subjective sense, so "better" means that they like that sound better. And there is no reason why someone can't like a less accurate recording better, so in what I think is the normal use of the word "better" it can be perfectly reasonable to claim a less accurate recording "sounds better" so long as one isn't making an absolute claim that it is "better" for everyone.

After all we have two words, "accurate" and "better" because they have slightly different meanings. Myself I prefer accuracy to inaccuracy, or at least I think I do since I rarely get a chance to objectively assess the accuracy of a particular instance of a recording to the original. But others prefer certain colourations they find pleasing, and why shouldn't they?

If you happen to like the colouration a vinyl record imparts to the sound then you just do, and it's a free country (at least in this respect). It is only when you make claims that amount to claiming that vinyl records are more accurate that I demur.